The Terminals

 

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This novel is dedicated to my steadfast beta reader and thirteen-year-old son, Aspen Buckingham, who is very nearly the target audience for
The Terminals
. Thanks, bud, for all the advice.

Thank you also to my incredible wife, Cara, and to Aiden, my intuitive nine-year-old, who brainstorms concepts with us at the kitchen table.

Shout out to Kaylee, Katelyn, Captain Eric, Dr. Dave, and the many others who read portions of the book and subjected themselves to vigorous cross-examination during the writing process.

 

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Prologue

Cam's Playlist #1: “Hello Mister Grimm” by The Fallen Angels

Cam's Playlist #2: “Roadkill” by Suicide Squirrel

Cam's Playlist #3: “Soul on a Stick” by Dog Breath

Cam's Playlist #4: “Welcome to the Zoo” by The Way Chunky Monkeys

Cam's Playlist #5: “Smells Like Monday” by Cheez Whiz

Cam's Playlist #6: “The Oath” by Slinky

Cam's Playlist #7: “Hey, I Know This Song” by The Nobodies

Cam's Playlist #8: “The Ice Firemen” by Blabbermouth

Cam's Playlist #9: “I Love Bacon” by The Foodies

Cam's Playlist #10: “Rustle and Whisper” by Okee Kenochee

Cam's Playlist #11: “Love Rhymes with Shove” by Lisa Ran Away

Cam's Playlist #12: “Boy Fever” by Wind Chimes and Grace

Cam's Playlist #13: “Sext Me” by Jackie Z

Cam's Playlist #14: “Meet and Greet” by Melody Who-Who

Cam's Playlist #15: “Chaos” by Demonkeeper

Cam's Playlist #16: “Backpack Full of Soul” by C. Aspen B.

Cam's Playlist #17: “Drift” by Slurpy

Cam's Playlist #18: “Can't Beat Me” by Two-One-Two Zone

Cam's Playlist #19: “Broked Apart Heart” by The Shitkickers

Cam's Playlist #20: “Down Time” by Robo Dork

Cam's Playlist #21: “Performance Anxiety” by Crush

Cam's Playlist #22: “Hamster Wheel” by The Fluffy Bunnies

Cam's Playlist #23: “Revelation” by Breathe

Cam's Playlist #24: “Growth Spurt” by The Lucky Ones

Cam's Playlist #25: “My Heart or Yours” by Love-n-Stuff

Cam's Playlist #26: “Dice” by One Shoe Magoo

Cam's Playlist #27: “Oh Yeah, Make Me” by So It Begins

Cam's Playlist #28: “The Endless Nothing” by Necromoor

Cam's Playlist #29: “Hope and Change” by That Weird Girl

Cam's Playlist #30: “'Splosions” by WTF

Cam's Playlist #31: “No Way!” by Go Fish

Cam's Playlist #32: “Treading Water” by The Blind Leading the Blind

Cam's Playlist #33: “This Little Piggy” by Squeaky Wheel

Cam's Playlist #34: “Fly” by The Dread

Cam's Playlist #35: “Tell on You” by Drummer Boy

Cam's Playlist #36: “Mighty Mighty” by Hydroplane

Cam's Playlist #37: “Lace Up” by Game Day

Cam's Playlist #38: “Let You Go” by Raven Dark

Cam's Playlist #39: “Angry Young Woman” by Calli

Cam's Playlist #40: “Me on Steroids” by Addictionopolis

Cam's Playlist #41: “Incontinental” by The Steam Punks

Cam's Playlist #42: “We're Alone Together” by The Flat Earth Society

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Also by Royce Scott Buckingham

About the Author

Copyright

 

PROLOGUE

With her enhancements, she was faster and stronger than them, but she was also outnumbered and had no weapon.

Siena broke cover and fled, hurdling rotten logs and dodging treacherous thickets. Even during the day it was dark beneath the lush, dripping tree canopy, which filtered out 80 percent of the sun, but her unnaturally wide pupils darted back and forth, spotting every root threatening to trip her up, every thorn waiting to tear her flesh. Her bare teenage feet danced around them, finding flat, spongy ground again and again.

She glanced about for a loose stick she could use as a club, her long auburn hair flying right and left. There was no time to stop and break off a dead limb—she could hear the faint thump and rustle of their tennis shoes less than twenty yards back.

She hit a thinner patch of forest and saw a hint of daylight above. Grabbing a low-hanging branch, she swung up into a tree and climbed for the sky. The ground was quickly obscured behind her, and, for a moment, she thought she was clever. But she surprised a small orange monkey and sent it screeching through the limbs. They'd know exactly where she was now—thirty feet in the air directly above them.

Siena left the safety of the trunk and tiptoed out onto a thick branch. It bent under her weight as it thinned, but her balance was exquisite, not merely as good as a ballerina's, but better. It wouldn't be for long, though. Running away meant no more TS-8. Her extraordinary abilities would fade to normal, like those of her pursuers, who had only just begun the enhancement process. But it was a price she was willing to pay for even a slim chance to live.

A dart whispered up from below and struck the thin branch inches from her foot, injecting the tree with an inky fluid she knew all too well. They were coming up, and they would almost certainly stick her with the next throw. The thin branch dipped like a precarious diving board. She pushed down with her legs, and when the limber branch rebounded upward, she jumped.

Vertical orientation was crucial when canopy jumping—the way the monkeys did it. She flew toward the next tree. Its limbs overlapped those of the tree she'd left, but they were too thin at their tips to support her. She needed to break through to the thicker inner branches. It was a great distance to cover without a run, perhaps twenty-five feet, impossible for an unenhanced person. But she
was
enhanced. She crashed through the thinner branches. They drew long red lines down her forehead and cheeks as they bent against her face. The scratches might have horrified a normal girl her age—a girl going to formals or having her sorority photo taken—but Siena ignored them, bursting through the canopy toward the thicker wood near the trunk. She tilted her head to dodge the point of a branch that might have stabbed her right eye, and stayed focused, reaching for two different limbs. Her palms slapped wood, closed around it, and then she bobbed, suspended, as the branches groaned against her weight thirty feet above the earth.

There was no time to celebrate the jump. She was still darting distance from her former tree. She yanked herself atop the limbs and climbed, bursting through the canopy's upper leaves into the light. When she looked back, she saw two dark shapes rising in the tree behind her, silhouetted against the light. The evening sun hung low in the sky behind them. She turned and tiptoed along another branch away from it, hurrying east, and when she reached its springy end she jumped again.

She flew through the tops of the trees, learning more with each leap, rapidly becoming adept. She was beating them. But helicopter blades thumped in the distance. Her heart sank. Her head start wouldn't matter. As soon as the pilot spotted her, the chopper would come for her too, and it was faster, much faster. Siena frowned—it wasn't any safer atop the canopy than on the ground.

The ocean came into view ahead, a wrinkled blue blanket thrown over the world beyond the lush carpet of forest. She made for it, climbing to a height that allowed her to see up and down the coast. The rocks of the fifty-foot seaside cliffs jutted beyond the tree line to the north. She skittered out on a branch and jumped down toward them, landing and jumping again, using her descent to add speed. A look back confirmed that the others were still following. They'd gone to the ground and were running. She had to lose them, she thought, or take them out. She preferred the second option, but her odds against multiple armed opponents were fifty-fifty at best. She could hear the helicopter approaching now. The pilot had seen her, or they'd radioed to the chopper. Now she was being tracked from the air.

There were more than two behind her on the ground. The pair in the tree were merely the vanguard. Her mind clicked through her advantages. Speed, strength, dexterity. Too few against too many. Knowledge of the forest was an important one, however. She'd been here for nearly a year. The new recruits hadn't. She hopped from branch to branch, fought down through leaves to the ground, and was running again. The helicopter wouldn't be able to see her. The other kids would have to chase her down.

Siena heard twigs snapping behind her. They were clumsy, but closing in. Her feet were bloody. If she'd had shoes, she might have simply outrun them. Instead, she made for the cliff. There was a place she knew, a secret spot she'd found during training.

She could hear panting now. The two were close, one very close. She saw a familiar tree, and then recognized a patch of white-speckled shrubbery. And when the cliff edge suddenly appeared beyond it, she was ready.

Her momentum carried her over, but she kept her legs beneath her and spun 180 degrees, hands darting out to grab foliage and arrest her descent just as she drew even with a small cave in the cliffside. She swung, and her momentum threw her inside, where she skidded hard across the cavern floor into the solid rock wall. It hurt, but she didn't cry out. Instead, she bit her lip and waited, breathless.

Footsteps rapidly approached above, followed by a cry of surprise.

The boy who plummeted past Siena looked about nineteen, like her. Like boys she used to date in her other life, her life
before
. He clutched a dart in his fist as though it were a lifeline. It wasn't. She saw a sudden, horrible realization in his eyes as they met hers for a split second on the way by, and then he continued down, his limbs flailing in the air. He abandoned the dart and grabbed at the cliffside foliage, but his hands slid past or yanked it loose without gaining purchase. He tried to get his feet beneath him, but his orientation remained horizontal. Falling sideways, his head slammed against a rock outcropping with the hollow cracking sound of a coconut bursting on pavement. Siena didn't watch him fall the rest of the way. She didn't need to. It was already over.

The others would come and see, she realized. If they searched the area they would find her. She quickly removed her backpack and threw it down after the crumpled pile of male flesh on the beach that had been a teen boy only moments earlier.

The next set of footsteps arrived above her as the waves began to wash her pack of supplies and the boy's body out to sea. They were heavier, booted footsteps, according to her sharp ears. Adult footsteps. They stopped, and there was silence for a time, and then a radio crackled to life. The male voice that belonged to the footsteps reported the scene below.

“This is personal trainer,” said the voice. “Siena's term has finally expired. And I regret to report that Peter has graduated early.…”

Siena hugged her knees in her hideaway as the ocean finished its indifferent cleanup work, leaving the beach empty.

“Looks like we're gonna need another kid.”

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

1. HELLO MISTER GRIMM